,,, the south Pacific is going thru mildly turbulent times. Rough and tumble in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea is a lawless frontier and Fiji has been raced, rallied and rolled in a series of coups since the late 1980s. Places like Nauru and Tonga are cut price havens for Russian money laundering and overall, the region isn't as stable as it was a couple of decades ago.
With Helen Klark taking directions from the UN, expect to see us aligning ourselves with France and China as Aussie becomes neighbouhood cop. Traditionally, NZ has supported Aussie and the US to the hilt. With Phil Goff calling on Arafat and Klark calling on Chirac, the blueprint seems to include strict adherence to the anti-nuclear policy to preclude forwarding relations with the US. Public sentiment should be checked via a referendum, but referendums are a real fear for the Labour government.